Definition

1. Noun:
   • A word having stress or an acute accent on the last syllable: In linguistics, an "oxytone" is a word where the primary stress or a high pitch accent falls on the final syllable.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:
  • The English word "kangaroo" is an oxytone, with the stress on the final syllable "roo".
  • In Ancient Greek, many adjectives were oxytones, marked with an acute accent on the last syllable.

Advanced Usage

• Linguistic Classification: The term is used to classify words based on their stress pattern, contrasting with "paroxytone" (stress on the penultimate syllable) and "proparoxytone" (stress on the antepenultimate syllable).
  • When analyzing poetic meter, it is important to note whether key words are oxytones.

Variants and Related Words

• Oxytonic (adj): Pertaining to or having the characteristics of an oxytone.
  • The oxytonic pattern is common in certain languages.

Synonyms

• Final-stress word: A descriptive phrase meaning a word with stress on the last syllable.

Notes on Meaning

• The term is primarily used in technical linguistic and philological contexts, especially concerning languages like Ancient Greek, Latin, and in the study of accentuation patterns across languages. It is not commonly used in everyday English conversation.

Noun

1. word having stress or an acute accent on the last syllable